Mobile communications terminal and method therefore

Abstract

An apparatus for handwriting recognition has a display screen providing a handwriting input area capable of detecting input from a user. A processing device is coupled to the display screen and provides a handwriting user interface to the user. The handwriting user interface is operable in at least a first mode and a second mode. A control panel in the handwriting user interface allows selection of said first or second mode. The processing device is adapted to receive an input from the user and to detect, in the input received from the user, a control panel invoking command. In response to detecting the control panel invoking command, the control panel is presented on the display screen. Then, in response to a predetermined event, the control panel is automatically removed from presentation on the display screen, therefore only occupying display space when really needed.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to electronic handwriting equipment, and more particularly to an apparatus for handwriting recognition having a handwriting user interface operable in at least a first mode and a second mode, which are selectable by a control panel. The invention also relates to an associated method for handwriting recognition. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Examples of electronic handwriting equipment include personal assistants (PDAs), hand-held computers (palmtops) and mobile terminals for telecommunication (mobile phones). These apparatuses have in common that they make use of a stylus and a touch-sensitive display screen, a solution that offers improved usability and flexibility compared to conventional user interfaces with a keypad or keyboard. [0003] In an apparatus that accepts user input by way of a stylus and a touch-sensitive display screen, the stylus normally plays two roles; sometimes it functions like a normal pen (“logic...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013] In view of the above, an objective of the invention is to solve or at least reduce the problems discussed above. More specifically, a purpose of the invention is to provide an improved manner for the user to control the current mode of handwriting in the apparatus, particularly so that the mode selection actions are intuitively and conveniently accessible to the user, preserving valuable space on the display screen at the same time.

[0023] In this way, whenever a switch in mode is desired, the user may conveniently perform the control panel invoking command to bring about the control panel. Then, once the predetermined event has occurred, the control panel will automatically disappear from the display screen. Thus, the control panel will only be present and occupy space on the display screen when it is needed, i.e. when the user is about to make a switch in mode. During other periods of time, the control panel will be absent and therefore not steal any valuable space on the display screen.

[0026] In some embodiments, the predetermined gesture is configurable by the user. In other words, the user may himself decide the particulars of the or each gesture that will cause presentation of the control panel. To this end, the user may enter a special settings routine in the user interface and either input the desired gesture by writing its symbol on the display screen, or select the desired gesture from a group of predefined gestures / symbols. Making the predetermined gesture configurable by the user is beneficial in that it allows each user to use the gesture that is the most convenient to him. In turn, this is likely to increase both the input speed and the recognition accuracy of handwriting, since a convenient gesture often would mean a gesture that could be entered both rapidly and accurately by the particular user.

Problems solved by technology

A general problem with electronic handwriting equipment is that there are some important design factors that are more or less in conflict with each other.

Obviously, a smaller apparatus size affects the maximum space that is available for the touch-sensitive display screen and therefore also limits the size of the handwriting input area.

Consequently, designing electronic handwriting equipment is often a trade-off between maximizing the size of the handwriting input area and minimizing the total apparatus size.

A drawback with such input boxes is that they constantly occupy parts of the touch-sensitive display screen and therefore prevent these parts from being used for other purposes, such as presenting information or control objects in the user interface.

This drawback is particularly pronounced if several symbol sets, and thus several input boxes, are available.

A drawback with this solution is that the meaning of each region is not automatically intuitive to the user.

Particularly after a period of inactivity, the user may find it difficult to remember whether e.g. upper-case letters are to be written in the lower region, center region or upper region.

Also, the solution is non-flexible in the sense that the user interface cannot be easily expanded from three different available symbol sets to e.g. four.

The drawback with this alternative is that it requires the user to remove, the stylus from the current handwriting activity and move it to another location on the touch-sensitive display screen for selection of the menu option or clicking the logical button, or even dropping the stylus to depress the key on the keypad.

Since the user's focus is momentarily switched from the handwriting activity to another action and then back again to handwriting, the quality of the handwriting will suffer both from a speed reduction and probably also a drop in accuracy.

A drawback, however, is that the control panel will occupy a considerable part of the handwriting input area and will therefore reduce the actual available area for handwriting input.

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